Day 113
by Witch in the Wild
Summary: On day 113, Eleven learned the word "murderer".


Eleven was on day 113 living in Chief Hopper's cabin, passing the day as she usually did: Eggos and television. Today's program lineup appeared to be more Days of Our Lives, and while it wasn't Eleven's favorite show, she tolerated it because it was the only channel that didn't seem to be full of infomercials. She despised infomercials.

The problem with day 113, though, was that today's show was a rerun of an episode she had already seen three times. Frustrated, she switched off the television with a flick of her head. She leaned back against the couch and gazed up at the ceiling in boredom. She wasn't aware of exactly how long she sat like that, but after some time had passed, she glanced over to the clock in the kitchen. Three-four-two. She brightened a bit at seeing the time, because Mike would have been home for some time now, and would probably be done with homework soon.

She waited until the clock read four-zero-zero, just to be safe, then switched the television back on. She scanned for a channel that wasn't broadcasting before grabbing her blindfold from her room and sitting back on the couch to lose herself in the static. She wasn't worried about Hopper coming home in the middle of her journey into the Void, since he had told her that morning that he wouldn't be home until six-one-five. "Six fifteen", he had corrected her patiently when she tried to confirm the time he had told her.

The white noise seemed to envelop her deafeningly for a split second, then she opened her eyes. Black abyss surrounded her, with a faint sourceless light illuminating the water she walked on. She concentrated just a moment longer and then she heard it: Mike's voice coming from ahead of her. And she was in luck: he had just sat down in her fort in his basement to talk to her with the walkie-talkie. She walked toward the Void-Mike as he fully solidified. She sat down next to him in the fort, content to listen to his ramblings. She had figured out long before that as long as she didn't say anything or touch him, he wouldn't truly know she was there, even if he talked like she was.

"Hi Eleven, it's day 113, and I just wanted to tell you that Troy tried to mess with me again today, but ever since you broke his arm, he's been less … I don't know … dedicated to it, I guess. He's probably expecting you to burst out from my locker at any second or whatever." Mike and Eleven both smiled a little bit at this. After a second, the smile slipped off Mike's face. "My parents were listening to the news while I was getting ready for school this morning. I wasn't really paying attention to it, but I heard the lady say something about a murderer being caught somewhere near Tippecanoe, and I started thinking about how that would have scared me before, because that's not far away, but then I remembered that there are a lot scarier things out there. Stuff like the demogorgon, and Dr. Brenner, and the Upside Down, and I realized that you've faced all of those things and I can't be scared of stuff like murderers now when you've defeated the worst creatures I've ever heard of and you're only, like, my age. And I know you beat the demogorgon, I just know it. There's no way you're..." Mike's confession trailed off here, lowering the walkie-talkie for a moment, and Eleven could see water building up in his eyes.

He leaned back against the wall behind the fort, looking up but not really seeing anything. "You are _not_ dead." He finally said into the walkie-talkie, forcefully, but quietly. "You are _not_ dead, because you are amazing, and powerful, and stronger than anything you've ever come up against. You're Eleven, and there's nothing that I know more than that you are extraordinary and that you'll come back." There were tears streaming down his cheeks by this point, but his voice had not wavered at all. He continued his confession quieter than before, "I need you to come back. I need to know that you're safe." Now his voice wavered. Eleven was crying by this point, sitting barely a foot away from him, wishing with all she had that she could reach out and hold his hand for just a second, wishing that she could tell him she was alive. But, like Hopper had taught her, she was not stupid. And if Mike knew she was alive, the bad men would find out, too.

"Are you there, El?" Barely a whisper, but full of hope and sadness at the same time. "I don't know if you can answer me, or if you can even hear me, but please, please … be alive." Mike lowered the antennae on the walkie-talkie and set it down next to him. He put his head down in his hands and Eleven could see the tears dripping on the blanketed floor of the fort. He lifted his head back up a few seconds later, eyes closed, and she couldn't wait any longer. She slowly lifted her hand and rested her palm against his cheek, brushing away a tear with her thumb.

Miles away, Mike felt the peculiar sensation of something invisible touching his face. It felt warm and soft and very much like a small hand. He turned his face toward the feeling, heart half-leaping with hope, opened his eyes, and found himself looking at …

Nothing. Nothing but the side of the fort.

Eleven lowered her hand, an empty sadness etched onto her face. She reached up and pulled the blindfold off her eyes, breaking the connection with the Void. A few tears carved their way down her cheeks, but she brushed them away. She sighed, then got up to go wash the blood off her face.

A couple hours later, as Eleven and Hopper were eating dinner, she remembered a word that Mike had said that confused her. "What is murderer?" she asked quietly, in between bites of the chicken Hopper had cooked them for dinner.

Hopper paused and looked at Eleven, wondering how she learned that word, but ultimately deciding not to ask at the moment. He reached behind him and grabbed a notepad and a pen sitting on the kitchen counter. "A murderer, spelled m-u-r-d-e-r-e-r," he wrote as he spoke and turned the pad around so Eleven could read the word properly, "is someone who kills another human for no reason. It's considered a terrible crime, because it's taking away someone's life." Eleven was frozen during his explanation, a million thoughts going through her head, but after a second she nodded jerkily and went back to eating her chicken so Hopper didn't worry about her. However, Hopper knew that something about his explanation was bothering her, but rather than push her and make her uncomfortable, he decided to let Eleven choose whether or not to talk to him about whatever it was that was on her mind.

The rest of the night passed in relative peace; Hopper and Eleven washed the dishes, tidied up the living room, and watched some television together, and before long it was time for bed. Hopper sat in a chair by Eleven's bed as he read to her from a book about constellations, but after several minutes he noticed that she looked particularly troubled. "El, is everything okay? You've seemed sad about something since dinner." He asked, concerned.

It took her a few seconds, but eventually Eleven answered brokenly, "I am a bad person because I murdered."

Hopper didn't know how to respond to this. It was one of the longest sentences she had said to him yet. But he was more shocked that she would even think something like that to herself, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized that his definition of "murderer" may have sounded familiar to Eleven when he remembered her past experiences in life. She was apparently saying this rhetorically, because she lay down and pulled the blanket up to her eyes before flipping the lightswitch with a flick of her head. "Goodnight Hopper", she said quietly.

Hopper didn't understand how to handle the sudden self-loathing he was sure that Eleven was feeling, not to mention the absolute stupidity he was feeling. He was in uncharted waters. He desperately wanted to say something to help, to alleviate her despondency, but his mind was completely blank. He would need to think about this. So he just patted her head, smoothing down her hair in what he hoped was a comforting manner, and then he left, saying, "Goodnight El."

Eleven didn't get much sleep that night, not while tossing and turning, but rather while paralyzed in her pain. "I am a murderer. I am not safe. I take lives. I murdered. I am not safe. I murdered. I am a murderer. Murderer. I am not safe for Mike. I am terrible. I am a bad person. Bad person. Bad like Papa. Bad. Bad. Terrible." Those thoughts ran screaming through her head all night, deafening her to memories of being a _good_ person, of Mike telling her she wasn't the monster, of Joyce holding her after the bath at the school and reassuring her.

When the sun finally came up the next morning, Eleven was still awake, having soaked through a section of her pillow with tears. She could hear Hopper bustling around in the kitchen, but she couldn't bring herself to get up yet. Hopper apparently had other plans though. He rapped quickly on the door, "El, honey, time to get up. I need to talk to you about something."

Eleven got out of bed reluctantly, made sure all the tears were wiped off her face, and went to the kitchen. "Talk about what?" she asked.

"I want to talk more about our word that we learned yesterday. I didn't explain it all the way, and I think it hurt you. So, come sit down." Hopper finished. Eleven sat at the table, not really sure what to expect, but not expecting anything good at the same time.

The notepad from the night before was on the table, but there was something new written below it. S-e-l-f d-e-f-e-n-s-e. "Self defense," she read aloud. "What is self defense?"

Hopper halfway smiled. "Self defense is when someone is hurting you and you protect yourself from them." Eleven's eyebrows bunched together in confusion. Hopper continued, "Self defense can be something like hitting someone who tries to hit you, or sometimes it can even be killing someone who is trying to kill you. It is _not_ murder. It is _not_ a crime. What I'm trying to say is that you are _not_ a murderer, El. Do you understand?" Eleven was shocked when Hopper had said that it included killing someone, but she felt far more impacted by Hopper's last statement.

"But … but I murdered bad men. Why isn't it murder?" Eleven was still confused, but she refused to let herself hope. She was a monster; she remembers letting the demogorgon out, she remembers killing the guards as they tried to put her in the small room at the lab, she remembers flipping the van that was going to run her and the boys down, and she especially remembered the blood leaking out of the bodies of the bad people at the school as she blocked them from her friends. "I killed lots of people. I did it on purpose. How is it different?"

"It's different because you killed those people to protect yourself and to protect your friends. It's not murder when you're protecting someone from being hurt. I only saw the bodies in the school, but that wasn't the first time, was it?" Hopper asked gently.

Eleven shook her head. "There were more before then."

"And were they trying to hurt you? The ones you protected yourself from?" Hopper replied. Eleven looked at Hopper with big brown eyes, filled with tears, not ready to believe that she could be saved from what she had sentenced herself to be the night before. "El, honey, were they going to hurt you if you didn't kill them?"

She whispered a quiet "yes".

"Then you are not a murderer. You are _innocent_." Hopper said strongly, as if he could speak the word directly into her soul. Eleven's face showed confusion at the word, unsure of its meaning. So he repeated the word. "Innocent. I-n-n-o-c-e-n-t." He wrote it on the notepad. "It means that you are not responsible for their deaths. You did nothing wrong, El. The bad men, they were wrong. But you? You were brave. You were braver than I have ever been, and I'm so proud of you for protecting Mike, and Lucas, and Dustin, and Will, and Nancy, and Jonathan, and Joyce, and me. You are not a murderer. You are _brave_." He got up the same time she did, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she wrapped hers around him. Neither of them made any effort to stop the tears running down their faces for a long time, content to let out any pain that either of them had been feeling for months.

"Brave." Eleven whispered eventually. _Brave_. This word she understood.


End file.
